From the Forums: Surface tablet is run over, Lumia 920 bugs and defects

For the best discussions covering Windows Phone, our community forum is the number one place for platform enthusiasts to check out. Boasting thousands of members with hundreds of posts being submitted on a daily basis, the Windows Phone Central forum can be slightly hectic so we publish the forum roundup to highlight a number of threads that are worthy of viewing.

The Microsoft Surface has been in the news for a variety of reasons with the latest being that it has survived after being run over by a vehicle - at a reported 60mph. This alone isn't special as such, but the Windows 8 tablet has pulled through with only light wounds and still works.

Forum member berty6294 has created a thread to share his experience with the community. A quick snippet:

"Some scratches and corners beat up quite a bit. I flipped it over and to my surprise, there is not a single scratch nor crack in the screen! I was completely speechless! The moment of truth was coming up.. I hit the power button, and never was I so happy to see the start screen of the Surface!"

The Surface tablet has been used as a skateboard and has even been dropped during the launch presentation, but it's good to see Microsoft still being highlighted for its quality hardware, which has been reflected through continuous praise from consumers.

The Lumia 920 is Nokia's flagship Windows Phone, and while it has only just been made available to the public we shouldn't overlook any issues that are being reported by consumers.

Forum user hasasimo has been looking over all the issues that new owners have been reporting after some use of the new Windows Phone 8 handset. We've listed all the problems highlighted in the round-up:

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I think by "first-gen" he means "first production run." Vritually all phones have potentially dodgy first run hardware for various reasons. Generally these production issues get straightened out after a month or two once production settles into a groove. Like he said, even the iPhone5 has some serious hardware issues such as screen failing to detect fast touches & gestures, iPhone 4 had a lot of major hardware issues on launch, and that's from Apple whom many people hail as the very best at quality control.

I love my 920. The vibrate is a bit noisey and I have had it lock up on me twice since friday where I had to hold vol - + power to reboot it. It's not often and the noisey vibrate is tolerable. I love this phone. My battery has been great and no dust or heat issues.

Using the Facebook and other lock screen features seems to cause the crashing. Mine locked 7 times in the first day (Fri). Went to just a photo and not Facebook - haven't had the problem again (Sun). Love the phone otherwise. BTW what is the little circle inside a circle that shows up next to the battery on the top bar from time to time? Also what do I need to do to have a screen capture treated like a real photo - other then texting it to myself?

I got that - but when you do that you cannot upload to Facebook or edit with picture software. I had to text the image to myself for the phone to allow me to edit, upload, tag, etc...
I used this screen capture feature in a video I shot to capture a frame to use as a picture - seems like a lot of hoops...

Good for you. But the goal is to have little issues as possible prior to sending to retail. Mistakes were present with the L900. Now with the L920 too? So how about round 3, same mistakes? Nokia needs to show some quality here.

Show me a phone that doesn't at least have a list like this nowadays. Don't take this the wrong way, not defending it. But, all companies need to stop making buggy products. It makes me not want to buy anything anymore. (especially electronic)

Nothing is perfect and all products as complex as a smart phone will never be perfect. Both iPhone and lots of android phones have bugs too. Calm down.. Software updates may fix issues that software can fix..

I'm on my 3rd 900, going to be my 4th soon. Has been the same issue everytime too, the capacitive buttons. They will fire when there are not even touched, or do a long press when they are.
I am starting to think it is my charger, only thing that has not changed.

Yep, had this problem with my Lumia 710 - using the touchscreen was maddening when it was charging.
The reason is that the power you have in your house is probably too dirty (i. e. not at all a pretty 50Hz@110V wave). You might want to use your charger with a quality surge protector and/or maybe buy and install a snap-on ferrite bead to stabilise the input power to your phone.

I've noticed the vibration rattle in my new 920. Its surprising the first time you hear it. The other issue I've noticed is random drops of the WiFi.
It recognizes the signal, but will ask for the password again. Annoying. Besides all that, I adore this phone. Coming from a Samsung focus, this phone just kills it.

I'm using my 920 on at&t my girlfriend is on t-mobile using my focus until we can get her a new phone sorry for the confusion my 920 is locked to at&t so far as I know it will be for 6 months look into a Canadian version I hear Rogers has them unlocked

Everhting worked great on my Lumia 920 until today. I hooked up my Lumia 920 to some speakers through the head phone jack. All I could hear was some pulsating coming from the phone. So I unplugged the speakers and plugged it back in which caused the phone to reboot. After it restarted it showed a message that my SIM card is blocked. Now the phone requires a PIN unlock key from AT&T before I can make calls again. How is that even possible that a phone crash can cause such a disastrous SIM card error.

This was what I worried most from Nokia. I question, have they learned from their first round of WP mistakes? Apparently these issues show they have not. In that sense, are we just buying the "Nokia" name?

I've had my 920 for a day and a half and it is living up to every expectation. Had the Titan II before, Titan before that and Surround for my first WP. So you see I am a big HTC fan. It's been about 10 years since I've had a Nokia. Very happy so far!

Vibration rattle is annoying. Not as bad as 900 but still noticeable. Phone got extremely hot when first set it up. I found that it was syncing my Comcast account for at least 2 hours. Result was heat and extreme battery drain.

I have the rattle, its annoying but doesn't seem to affect performance yet. What does bother me is how hot the phone gets right above the rear camera. Gets warm after awhile, but found that messing around with taking pictures is making it so hot it is worrying me.

Man there is nothing I hate more than a loud vibration motor on my phone. I can set custom levels and patterns on s3 and I love that compared to my Titan 2. I may skip the 920 for now at least. Titan still works fine so why bother?

I have the rattle. Ive alo had it freeze up three times. I got it on friday. I took it back to ATT tonite and got a new one and it still has a problem the first one had. After I pair it with a bluetooth device and have bluetooth on and discoverable on the phone it wont automically connect. I have to go into bluetooth settings and click device numerous times for it to connect. Also with bluetooth on and I swipe from top it shows bluetooth icon off, even with BT on!! Please fix this asap as everyhting else on the phone works flawless. Please fix bluetooth intermittently turning off even though its on in settings. I think this was causing the crashes.

I have the white 920, and the only problem I've seen is that the screen is wonky when the brightness is at full blast. And even then its only happened once. Battery life is better than my 900. The problem with the vibration is nonexistent. I'm in love with my new phone.

Rattle was there with 900. There again with 920. It takes getting used to. Once you do, going back to one that's completely silent is weird ... Had to use my old focus for a while a month back, missed the rattle. Its weird at first, but it becomes part of your experience...

I don't think it's a vibrate problem. Just a matter of tasts. Some people like more vibration, some less.
I prefer more distinct vibration, so that I can hear and feel it. My iphone's vibration is so weak that most of the times, I
miss the vibration.

Just had my 920's screen get all pixelated. Kind of like a snowy look on a TV. Was just talking on the phone (over an hour) when it happened. After powering the phone off then back on, it appears to be ok. Anyone else experience this?

Had the heat and battery drain issues day one. Even after full discharge and re-charge to 100%.
Finally turned nearly everything off: location, background tasks, xbox, feedback, etc. Battery life is better than before, already added location and one background task back without accelerated battery drain. Will closely monitor for a few days and keep adding back setting from day one to see what caused the problem. Kinda pointless having a WP if you can't have live tiles and other services working for fear of unresonablly short battery life (less than 6 hrs without heavy usage.)

I have not had any of these problems so far. I have had my phone unplugged from a charger for about 12 hours and have done heavy web browsing, downloading apps, watching YouTube videos, and messing with the settings and tiles and am sitting at 55% battery. Haven't had it get hot at all and the screen is seemingly flawless. Seems to me it may be a manufacturing problem more so than anything else given the software should be identical across the devices.

I have had heat, battery, lock up, vibrate, and even the audio out issues. I can live with the vibrate problem, I don't need to use that anyways. The other problems are troubling.
They've had to of been aware of at least a few of these problems, as they appear to affect many people.

This is bad news for Nokia and Windows phone. I have been using a Nokia Lumia 800 for just under a year, and it has been in for repairs 3 times. Prior to the 800, I had an Omnia 7, which was also replaced 4 times by Orange. My Lumia 800 now has no wifi, and live tiles do not update. Hell, because I had no wifi connection on my phone, I had to uplaod this comment via my PC. The only way I understand to get this rectified, is by doing a hard reset, which would mean me having to reinstall all my apps again (about the 10th time). I refuse to do this again. Sorry guys, but enough is enough, and I cannot trust getting another Nokia or even Windows phone again. I will be upgrading next month to something else. I have been one of the Windows phones biggest supporters, and am constantly in confrontations with iPhone fanbois, but I am truly disappointed with what is going here. The Lumia 920 should not have these issues at all. They came very late to the party, and the 920 and WP8 missed the boat when iPhone 5 was launched, and now these issues. Not good enough, so Adios WP8 and Nokia....

Sorry, but would avoid Android like the plague. I am considering going back to Blackberry, if it launches 10 quick enough, or it is going to have to be iPhone. It kills me to write to this, but I have had 2 years of hell with Windows phone, and I will end up being a hypocrite. I honestly think that BB will take back a lor of business from all platforms.

Drama queen..sorry had to say it.. These problems are isolated. No everyone are having these issues.. Plus dude, what are you doing with your phone by having that much bad luck.. Have you ever thought it could be user induced. Yea, it could be you.. At the most part.. Most of the phones out there are fine.. Heck, iPhone 5 has its issues out the box too. So calm down dude.. You wanna jump ship.. No one is holding you to Windows.. Plus you are one in millions who will still support Microsoft.. So there..

Dude, I have been one of the biggest supporter of Windows phone in the Uk, were the market for WP is so small. If you think my problems are isolated, then you are just kidding yourself. I chose to use this article to express my discontent, as it is the 920 that I was going to upgrade to. With these problems (similar to the ones we had with the 800 in the battery drain), I do not wish to trust Nokia again. I, my friend, have woken up and smelt that coffee. MS needs to keep early adopters happy, not screw them around. Where is 7.8 for us?? You are right, no one is holding me back, and I will go. I am not a drama queen, but having used this great OS for the past 2 years, and then seeing that certain issues remain, and OEMS producing bad hardware, it is time to go. So there.... Dude!
In the UK, you can go to any phone shop, and they are mis-selling the WP8 devices. I went to 4 last weekend, and they are all either displaying the 820 as a 920, or an 8X as an 8S. Just not good enough, and MS should be sorting this out.

I'm very happy with my 920. The battery does go down kind of fast, but I've been doing tons of stuff with it in the first few days, so I'm not too surprised. The vibration does rattle a little, but otherwise no real problems.

God after seeing that lumia has dust issues im wary of getting one :/ knowing my luck (every phone I have ever had has either broken or gotten dust bellow the screen! ) hopefully its only a couple of US lumias :/ god its so hard to chose btwn HTC and Nokia other than 8x is cheeper :(

My phone got very hot when I first turned it on. After a full charge I got only 4 hours of battery life. That has changed after turning off the 2 Nokia Drive BETA services that were running as background tasks all the time.

For those reading this list and panicking, don't! My white Lumia 920 has been wonderful! No freezing, battery is fine. The ONLY issue I've had has been app-related (Draw Something is super laggy, Kindle won't open). This is a fabulous phone and I'm glad I dumped Android.

We all know how it goes, you'll hear the most from those that have problems and are looking to see if others are having problems too. I guarantee the problem phones, of which you are going to find with any sophisticated product like the Lumia 920, are a small minority. I am on my fourth WP, Surround, Titan, Titan II, now Lumia 920, and have NEVER had to replace one with a problem. I am a Microsoft early adopter and love being so. Have had W8 pro laptop and tablet for a few months already. It's all not perfect early on but the wrinkles get ironed out. I am IT for about 55 users and in reality, about 90% of the time it is user error..
You will NEVER see an apple in my hand.. My 920 rocks!

Based on comments, I'm starting to wonder if Nokia got a bad batch of phones. It looks like many of the problems are clustered: if has problem A, tends to also have problems B and C.. It might be helpful to also note where you bought your phone

That's the thing. All of us having issues are reporting them, and our usage, to see if there is a pattern. I also believe that there is a bad batch of devices out in the wild now.

I would rather not have to go through the process or procuring a replacement 920 but I won't just live with a defective unit. Of course its not helpful when people not experiencing issues are openly hostile towards those that do. Don't understand why they feel the need to pile on since its bad enough that a much anticipated device is not working for some...

I bought a nokia lumia 820 and seems to be pretty damn brilliant so far only down side is the music sync is sooooo frustratingly crap and cant find anywhere to buy the other colour shells yet or the rugged ones too :(

So far mines fine, no issues, just the battery goes down fast but that's just a software thing that will be fixed, no dust gets in my screen, haven't had anything freeze, and there's no rattling like everyone says? Mine sounds solid.....there must be a bad batch in some areas, if all else fails sorry guys just return it and get another Lumia I'm sure they will have another new batch with in 30 days, we all have a one year warranty on it :) that beats the iPhone warranty unless you want to pay loads extra, My dad bought and iPhone and the charging unit inside went bad a week later, they wouldn't let him replace the phone without buying a new one :P

All OEMs usually have some problems in the early production. Some more, some less. The Verge made an article about HTC 8X having lots of issues aswell http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/7/3612586/htc-8x-seems-to-have-quality-issues
8X is no exeption. Apple have had its share of quality issues with iPhone5. Some issues are fixable by software, others in the production and some are just plain design flaws(like the skin peeling off 8x). The safest bet is just to wait a few months until the companies have dealt with the quality issues in the ramp-up of the production.